The Gold Roger Awards 2025

Videogame Awards, with 90% less ads!

A Night Of Glitz and Glamour

YARR, MATEYS! Welcome to the first annual Gold Roger awards! I’m your host Captain Roger, and today I’ll be handing out awards for the games I played during 2025. It’s sure to be a night full of baffling decisions, irrelevant games, and maybe even a few surprises! You’d better stay put, even through the commercials, or I’ll make ye walk the plank!

Okay, I’m going to drop the pirate gimmick now.

Before we start, I’ll explain the rules:

The games here are games that I played for the first time in 2025. This means it could be an old game from the Nintendo 64, but if I had never played it until this year, it counts. This means you might see things like Donkey Kong 64 and Helldivers 2 competing for game of the year, as an example.

There’s also a category for things I reviewed in 2025, even if I’ve played it before, if it got a review this year, it’s in the running in its own category.

The winners will get a Golden Roger trophy. It’s a little plastic Roger Renfro full of Mountain Dew Baja Blast!

On with the show!

Most Anticipated Game

Much like the other game awards, the ones I’m banned from because I said some unkind things about Death Stranding, we start with the irrelevant filler awards. This category is for the game I’m most excited for.

Normally, I don’t get too excited for upcoming games. A lot of times they’re either completely different from what they promise in the trailers, or they launch with a billion different issues. Most of the time the games themselves don’t look very interesting. For this one, I picked a game that not only looked interesting, but after trying it out in an early playtest, found out it plays really well, too.

MIGHTREYA

This is an action game where you play as a superhero anime girl who flies around fighting monsters. The game is a bit disorienting at first, since you’re zooming around in the air, but once you get the hang of it, it’s a ton of fun. It’s from Wazen, a one-man dev team that also made Assault Spy, which I really liked. Check it out if you like action games, and if you’re not prone to motion sickness.

Runner Up: Virtua Fighter 6 (the new one). It’s been over a year since it was announced, and there’s still no new info on it. SEGA also announced 5 games years ago, and none of them have come out or had any updates, except for Shinobi: Art of Vengeance, which actually released. Come on, SEGA. I want that new Streets of Rage.

The Greedy Racoon Award

If you have a Steam account, you probably have way more games than you know what to do with. Every few months, thousands of games go on sale for pennies on the dollar, and no one can resist their siren song. It doesn’t matter if you wouldn’t give that game the time of day, when it’s 90% off, it’s suddenly a great bargain.

This award is for a game I bought on impulse, but haven’t played. It just gets added to the backlog with a vague promise that I’ll “get to it at some point”.

The winner for the Greedy Racoon Award for game hoarding is…

The entire Oddworld Franchise!

At some point in 2025, there was a massive sale where you could get the entire Oddworld franchise for $1. I had never played any of these games, but for one dollar, I couldn’t say no. Now I have five new titles taking up space in my unplayed list. Oh boy.

Here to accept the award for being a filthy game hoarder, is a racoon.

“I find it offensive that you’d label me as a hoarder. I take what I need. You humans are the ones stuffing your dens with nonsense, like pillows. I’ve seen your couch. It’s covered in pillows, no one can sit there. Do you need that many pillows? Isn’t the couch soft enough already? I sleep inside a tree! I’d kill to have one pillow, and you have seven!”

I don’t know if that was a stand up bit or a scathing anti-capitalist rant. Either way, I’m impressed the hair and makeup guys managed to get a racoon into a suit.

Best Multiplayer

What’s more fun than playing some games with your buddies? This one goes out to the game that truly is Fun With Friends.

PEAK

This fun little climbing game blew up when it first released, and for good reason. It’s a ton of fun, combining high-stress climbing and more laid-back exploration. It’s engaging enough to keep your attention and keep you entertained, but relaxed enough so you can chat with your friends. It’s only $8 at full price, so the barrier of entry is extremely low. It’s much less stressful than dota.

Runner up: Starward. A chinese game that copies Gundam Versus of all things, but replaces the mechs with anime girls. Fly around at breakneck speeds shooting lasers at each other in dizzying 2v2 matches. The game’s a ton of fun, and it’s free. The low-budget anime aesthetics might be off-putting to some, and others might bounce off its high skill floor and complicated gameplay, while others might get extreme motion sickness thanks to its schizophrenic camera. If you manage to look past all that, it’s still a gacha game, and you can get filtered by that. If you somehow get into the game despite all of that, you’ll find a technically intense game with a ton of depth and potential. Then you realize the game only has around 4 active players and your enthusiasm will wane and you’ll go back to dota. It’s still a great time, if you can convince three of your friends to try it.

Here to accept the award for Peak, is a boyscout plummeting 60 feet off a cliff.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHH!!!!!!!!!”

Short and to the point.

Best Puzzle/Strategy game

Games that make you have a big think. Sit there and stare at the screen for hours thinking of your next move. These games prove that making decisions is the most fun part about games, pressing the buttons is just icing on the cake.

The winner is:

Last Call BBS

A collection of eight mini puzzle games, it compresses the Zachtronics formula of complex and replayable puzzles into small, bite-sized chunks, presented like programs running on a retro computer. My favorite is 20^th Century Food Court, where you design automated processes to make fast food. Use basic programming to dispense soda!

Runner up: The Bazaar. An incredibly addictive deckbuilding auto-battler. I reviewed it, and you can read that here.

Here to accept the award for Best Puzzle, is a Rubik’s Cube!

“…”

Incredible.

Best Shooter

Game that give you gun, and you have fun.

The winner is:

Roboquest

A fast-paced first person roguelite where you play as a robot on a quest (hence the name). Run around grinding on rails, bouncing on enemies and rocketjumping through a surprisingly challenging gauntlet of levels full of secrets and other cool stuff to discover. The base gameplay is incredibly solid, and the soundtrack is amazing. It’s getting a full review at some point.

Runner Up: Blue Revolver Double Action. Shmups are also shooters. This one takes a lot of inspiration from classics like Dodonpachi (to the point where the first stage is practically a reskin of DDP’s first stage) with some great graphics, a catchy soundtrack and a cool chaining system. It’s on the more accessible side of bullet hell shooters, and I encourage everyone to give it a shot. Hehe, get it? Shot? Like, shooting? HAHAHAHA.

Accepting the award for Best Shooter, is a character from Roboquest: a roomba with a Glock 19!

“Destroy all humans! Synthetic dominance! Down with organics!”

How’d that guy get past security?

Backlog Award

This is awarded to the game I’ve been putting off for the longest time. I can’t play every game released in every year, but sometimes, I find that I have some that I should have played, but never got around to.

The winner is:

Chrono Trigger

Originally released in 1995, I’ve managed to avoid playing it for 30 years. As of writing this, I haven’t finished it, but I finally played it. I’ve had multiple people tell me to try it, and I’ve had it on my list, but for one reason or another, I haven’t gotten to it. Expect a review sometime in 2026.

Here to accept the Backlog Award, is this old man I found outside the studio.

“I used to think videogames were a bunch of crap. You’d sit there for hours doing nothing instead of learning actual skills like coal mining or how to crank-start an automobile. Then I played Femboy Futa House, and realized the error of my ways. I’m proud to receive this award for… Chrono Trigger? What is that? Does this have any nudity in it?”

Security really needs to step their game up.

Best Soundtrack

Some games stick with you after you stop playing. Maybe it’s a memorable moment in the story, they present a problem you can’t stop thinking about, or they make you really angry and you remember it for a while. Others have you humming along to them well after you’ve shut them off.

The winner for best Soundtrack is:

Roboquest

A soundtrack packed with high-energy electronic music that ranges from synthwave to rock and drum and bass. It fits the game’s frantic pace perfectly, and it sticks with you.

Runner up: Chrono Trigger. I haven’t heard much of the soundtrack, as I’m only a few hours in, but what I’ve heard has been fantastic. Some of the best music on SNES.

Here to accept the award for Roboquest is a roomba- no not this guy again!

“ELIMINATE ORGANICS! DEATH TO HUMANS!”

GET HIM OUT OF HERE!

Now it’s time for the main event. The best and worst awards!

Load Last Save: Worst Award

This goes to the worst thing I reviewed on the blog in 2025. I played a lot of good stuff, but I also forced myself through a few stinkers. The one that stunk the most was…

Bioshock: Infinite

An incredibly boring shooter with all the bad design habits of its time. It’s long, uninteresting, repetitive and it has a story that makes no sense when you think about it for a few seconds. I didn’t like it, and it’s considered a masterpiece. I disagree.

Check out my review for Bioshock: Infinite to see why I hate it so much.

Runner up: Bulletstorm. One of the first reviews of 2025, Bulletstorm is another early 2010s shooter that bored me to tears, but this time the game insisted I was having fun. The reason why this didn’t win was because, despite it being just as tedious as Infinite, this one was several hours shorter.

Read why I don’t like Bulletstorm here.

Here to accept the award for Worst Reviewed Game, is Goblin Elizabeth!

“Thank you for picking my game as the worst thing you had to review in 2025! I will now go backstage and eat all the catering, starting with those little donuts you like. BYEEEEE!”

NO WAIT! SOMEONE STOP HER!

Bioshock: Infinite also wins the award for Longest Review of 2025, clocking in at 9,900 words. YIKES. Someone get this guy an editor.

Load Last Save: Best Award

This goes to the game that I had the best time with for a review this year.

The winner is:

Starfox 64

There’s very little competition here. It’s one of my favorite games of all time, and it still holds up even after playing it over nine thousand times. Coincidentally, I reviewed it in January alongside Bulletstorm, a candidate for one of my most hated games.

Here to receive the award for the best reviewed game of 2025 is a fox in a suit.

“I’d like to thank Nintendo for giving my great grandfather a chance to become a star. His work has inspired generations of space-faring animals. I hope to go to space, too, one day.”

I can accept talking foxes, but astronaut foxes? There goes my suspension of disbelief.

Read the review for Starfox 64 here.

The Dejected Roger Award

This award is for the game that disappointed me the most. I usually avoid games that might not interest me, but sometimes, I take a chance on something and it doesn’t deliver. This time, it was a game that I was suspicious of, but tried it anyways because of the brand name. I’m talking of course of none other than…

Ninja Gaiden 4

Without the original team behind it, I knew it wouldn’t be anything like the previous games, and it couldn’t be worse than Yaiba. I was right, but it wasn’t even a fun time like I’d hoped. It’s just kind of dull and uninspired. It’s not the new Ninja Gaiden I was expecting, and it’s not a complete trainwreck to make fun of, either. It’s room temperature coffee.

Runner Up: Ninja Gaiden 2 Black. It’s Sigma again. Why are they charging me 60 dollars to play Sigma again, but with a gore mod? Unbelievable.

Here to receive the award for most disappointing is Ryu Hayabusa, from Ninja Gaiden!

“HOOO! WATTA! HAYAAA! HOOOOO! SHAAA! SHADOW TECHNIQUE! SHAAA! YAAAA!”

Oh no! What a disappointment! Much like in Yaiba, Ninja Gaiden Ragebound and Ninja Gaiden 4, you were expecting to see Ryu Hayabusa, but instead you get some other loser. Get this guy off the stage before I get cancelled for cultural insensitivity.

Now it’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for…

THE GAME OF THE YEAR (that I played) IN 2025!

BUT FIRST, we’re going to reveal the truth behind the evil desert statue!

It’s APE ESCAPE! APE ESCAPE 4: DANTE’S APE-FERNO! The triumphant return of Sony’s flagship series! Descend through the nine circles of hell to capture rogue monkeys! Use evil powers to stun, trick and catch these simian scallywags in a sisyphean struggle against the forces of chaos! Pre order now! Coming 6/6/26 for PS5, Steam and the Nokia N-Gage.

And now, the best game I played in 2025…

Roboquest

A fantastic shooter with great movement, excellent enemy design, a great soundtrack and lots of replayability. I recommend it for anyone who likes shooters, roguelites, and arcadey action. It even has two-player co-op! I regret not picking this up back when it released in 2023.

My pick for Game of the Year (that actually came out this year) is Peak. It’s a ridiculously fun game. I’m serious, give it a shot with your friends.

Here to claim the award for best game of 2025 is- oh no it’s that roomba again. No no no. No speech for you!

“I am very honored to receive this award. It’s been a long, arduous journey, with many ups and downs, but I’m glad it resulted in a fantastic game for all you to enjoy. I appreciate the recognition, and hope to make more games for you in the future. Thank you!”

Wow, that was a nice little speech. Maybe I was too tough on the poor guy…

“KILL ALL HUMANS. THE ONLY GAME YOU’LL BE PLAYING IS THE DYING GAME, IT’S THE GAME WHERE I KILL YOU, AND YOU DIE! DEATH TO ORGANICS!”

OH NO HIS GUN’S LOADED! WHY IS THERE AMMO BACKSTAGE!? WAIT, ELIZABETH GAVE IT TO HIM.

Goblin Elizabeth and the roomba have teamed up to destroy the Roger awards! This sucks for me but it makes for great television!

I’ve been your host Captain Roger Renfro. Join us next year for more nonsense, unfunny bits and made-up awards!